Curious...am thinking about doing one of those 30 day challenges which seems very similar to Paleo. Almost everything is plant, vegetable, and fruit based, with little exception. Has anybody done this, if so, how was it?

It's not a challenge, it's a problem solving exercise. The doc recommended it to me. Even had to drink bottled water, not from the tap. Then reintroduce one thing to your diet each day, (starting with tap water on day one) take your pulse three times a day and look out for any other incriminating side effects.

I know other people who've done it for medical reasons too. Pretty scary when you realise what effect certain foods/drinks/ingredients/chemicals do to you as an individual.

The down side (other than realising that you might have to forever do without certain foods) is that your diet is unbelievably dull (if very healthy) for those 30 days while your system gets to do a full detox.

Sarlacc83 wrote:The minute I hear "cleanse" I start to think of people who have no idea how nutrition works.

Agreed. If you want to fast etc. it is one thing and done for a lot of reasons.. . I think this whole cleansing thing started because the mistaken understanding of how your digestive system works. The most common one I have heard is that milk and wheat and mucus causing, which is not correct and it's needed anyhow in your body.

If you want to do a modified fast just going on a water one for a day or so is as good as any. Not eating a couple foods is not magic ; nor is fasting for that matter.

I have a daughter that is allergic to a pile of stuff and I mean big time. When she got on her current diet years ago she told me it was the first time she didn't have a headache in her life, that was in her 30s.

She has to be gluten free

Can not eat anything above ground, like wheat, but can have potatoes. Meat wise she has to check what's in it and mostly chicken, eggs which she prefers hard boiled. Its a tough diet but she sticks with it and exercises like crazy. She bikes 100 miles a week or so and several times a week she walks the stairs near the dog run at Shilsole Bay as part of an hours workout. I would have been able to do those stairs years ago but not now.

For those that have never tried them they are close to almost a stairs ladder. Take 85th/Aurora exit. Go as far as you can on 85th. There is an expresso place on one corner. straight ahead is a bench to sit on at the top of the steps. Go look sometime. She comes up them at a fast walk.

I’ve been doing something similar for a few months. I’ve been eating “Paleo”, which is basically Meats, Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts. Dairy isn’t prohibited, but also not encouraged, but I rarely eat it anyways. I haven’t done a full cleanse – I don’t freak out that my soy sauce has a little wheat in it, and I usually indulge once a week for a brownie or do the free-samples run at Costco (which always includes wheat-products). I haven’t noticed any differences in health, energy level, etc – though I have leaned up a fair bit despite not losing any actual weight, but there was a lot of calorie reduction going of (used to eat takeout every night, now I cook most of my meals) – but it really wasn’t that hard after the first week or two.

Advice that worked for me and may not help you one bit:1.) Get rid of foods in the house that will tempt you. That was probably why the first two weeks were tough for me.2.) Find some pro-cleanse foods that you like. For example, I get tired of almost every vegetable very quickly and I don’t believe Salad is good for anything except bait. Except Broccoli. I love that stuff. So I buy 6lbs of Broccoli every week and make stir fry dishes every day – I fill up on the good stuff and I actually like it. Likewise, Apples work for me right now since they are in season, cheap, and taste like candy. My diet on weekdays is now Chicken, Apples, and Broccoli, and I don’t mind it at all. 3.) Find some restaurant food that will work for you. At some point, you will have to eat out or get takeout. Have a plan. Easy if you like Salad, hard if you only eat real food.

Anyways, I doubt I will continue for much longer because it is a lot of work and I didn’t notice any real benefits, but I’ve always had the digestive tract of a champion.

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Similar to that line from Pulp Fiction, "My girlfriend is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian"

Wife is a vegan, which makes me a vegan 95% of the time. She also cut out gluten for a bit, and has done a variety of cleanses. Raw food cleanses, smoothie cleanses, juice cleanses, done them all. I've been roped into a couple, and learned a few things.

The issue with all cleanses is that the person who is doing the cleansing isn't always prepared for it.

A lot of the processed food and stuff a person eats regularly is addictive, your body and mind is addicted to it. Your body also needs food, a lot of people think cleanse and end up not eating what they should. They end up feeling weak, not necessarily from the cleanse, but because their body is going through withdrawal and they are also are not nourishing themselves.

Like Snohomie said, find some pro cleanse foods you like. And learn to cook. The hardest part of any cleanse is the craving and the discipline. If you cook things you enjoy, you don't really notice.

I have personally gone Paleo/Gluten-free before for a couple months and now I eat about as close to gluten-free as you can get (though I love beer and have things with Soy Sauce in them sometimes). As others have said, you will crave carbs and having such a restrictive diet makes you realize how much you love foods that you aren't supposed to eat as part of it. I hardly ever consume any dairy, and it's been that way for years.

Anyway, I noticed that I was having much more regular bowel movements and my body felt pretty good (almost like a body high/the feeling you get from endorphins after a good... work out). I also noticed how I was hardly ever gassy or felt bloated.

My suggestion is try out something like a paleo or gluten-free diet and see how it works for you. What I think you'll notice (as I noticed myself) is that when you have foods that have gluten in them (or the like) after going with out them for so long, you'll know which foods affect you in certain ways. Having beer/gluten again for the first time made me so gassy and bloated.

I did a 7 day "cleanse" a couple years ago that was really more of a "fast" and by about day 5 I felt better than I had in years, maybe ever. I felt like I had super powers. I've always wanted to do it again but starting it is the hard part. The first 2 or 3 days are torture. After that you kind of begin to wonder what exactly food is for in the first place.

I also went mostly paleo this past summer. Had a hard time cutting out the beer. But lots of meat, fruit, nuts & veggies. No rice, corn, wheat, grains, legumes etc... It felt really good as well. Probably would have been amazing if I'd have been able to cut out the booze but alas, I am but a man.

I will tell you though that I'm a generally pretty unhealthy person. I quit smoking about a year ago, so that's good, but although I do go through good phases, I tend to be a pretty unhealthy eater and a drink way too much. And I don't exercise enough and I don't get enough good sleep. So my results doing these "diets" and such could be quite skewed from what a regular person would experience.

JGfromtheNW wrote:Anyway, I noticed that I was having much more regular bowel movements and my body felt pretty good (almost like a body high/the feeling you get from endorphins after a good... work out). I also noticed how I was hardly ever gassy or felt bloated.

I have cut out dairy from my diet entirely for about a year now and had gone completely vegan for about 6 months. I recently added back in some lean meats (mostly chicken / turkey) but I'm still off the dairy. That whole food pyramid thing the Govt is selling lines up really nicely with the areas they're doling out subsidiaries to. I've never felt better and if I manage to kick the soda habit again (going vegan made me fall back on sugar) I'm sure I'd feel even better. I haven't cut out wheat, but I try not to make it a large portion of any meal. When I eat wheat, it's all "real food" wheat not processed crap.

JGfromtheNW wrote:My suggestion is try out something like a paleo or gluten-free diet and see how it works for you. What I think you'll notice (as I noticed myself) is that when you have foods that have gluten in them (or the like) after going with out them for so long, you'll know which foods affect you in certain ways. Having beer/gluten again for the first time made me so gassy and bloated.

Just to add to this, it's really informative to do this. If you can put in at least a few weeks on a really restrictive diet (veggies / fruits only) and then try eating something like a slice of pizza, you'll notice almost immediately how it affects you. Repeat with some of your other "favorite foods" and you'll start craving them a lot less. I remember thinking I really wanted a Carl's Jr. Wester Bacon Cheeseburger about 2 months into my new diet and I did not have a pleasant afternoon at the workplace restroom. When you start to think about your food choices in relation to how many shits you'll take that day it starts to make your decisions easier.

JesterHawk wrote:I've never felt better and if I manage to kick the soda habit again (going vegan made me fall back on sugar) I'm sure I'd feel even better.

Man, how did you get back on the soda? I've been off it for about 10 months, and I literally have NO desire to go back, a few months ago I tried a soda, I couldn't do it, too sweet for me, so sweet it was disgusting... Needless to say, I didn't finish that can of soda.

I've gotten into the habit of making pasta the night before, then bringing it for lunch, and often I have more at dinner along with some type of meat.

Have always loved bread as well...ever since I was a toddler.

I'm feeling like I definitely need to up my vegetables and proteins and cut back on the carbs. I'm in my mid 30s now and I feel like looking good is definitely getting more challenging in terms of what I can eat and what I can't.

I'm thinking of changing my diet gradually rather than going cold turkey now, because I feel like if I go too fast my body will be screaming.